A compact laser desorption source for spectroscopic studies of jet-cooled biomolecules, comprising simple parts for sample movement and desorption was designed, assembled and attached to a home-built time-of-flight mass spectrometer. The performance of the system was validated by monitoring the resonantly enhanced two-photon ionization spectrum of tryptamine, in the region of the origin band transitions. This spectrum resembled that previously acquired, from heated samples, indicating the presence of seven conformers in the molecular beam. These results suggest the possibility to couple this type of compact source to other systems and to various spectroscopies.